ON BENDED KNEE: Teri Carpentier kneels during a service at St. Mary’s by the Sea in Huntington Beach. Kneeling, she says, is praying “with our bodies, not just our minds.” (Karen Tapia-Andersen / LAT)
Posted on 05/28/2006 5:31:47 AM PDT by NYer
"At a small Catholic church in Huntington Beach, the pressing moral question comes to this: Does kneeling at the wrong time during worship make you a sinner?"
Kneeling "is clearly rebellion, grave disobedience and mortal sin," Father Martin Tran, pastor at St. Mary's by the Sea, told his flock in a recent church bulletin. The Diocese of Orange backs Tran's anti-kneeling edict.
Though told by the pastor and the archdiocese to stand during certain parts of the liturgy, a third of the congregation still gets on its knees every Sunday.
"Kneeling is an act of adoration," said Judith M. Clark, 68, one of at least 55 parishioners who have received letters from church leaders urging them to get off their knees or quit St. Mary's and the Diocese of Orange. "You almost automatically kneel because you're so used to it. Now the priest says we should stand, but we all just ignore him."
The debate is being played out in at least a dozen parishes nationwide.
Since at least the 7th century, Catholics have been kneeling after the Agnus Dei, the point during Mass when the priest holds up the chalice and consecrated bread and says, "Behold the lamb of God." But four years ago, the Vatican revised its instructions, allowing bishops to decide at some points in the Mass whether their flocks should get on their knees. "The faithful kneel … unless the Diocesan Bishop determines otherwise," says Rome's book of instructions. Since then, some churches have been built without kneelers.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
If kneeling is a mortal sin, then many of us will gladly suffer eternal damnation.
Is that Bp. Brown's Diocese?
Isa. 45: 23
23 I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, That unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear.
Rom. 14: 11
11 For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.
Philip. 2: 10
10 That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;
"Kneeling "is clearly rebellion, grave disobedience and mortal sin," [said] Father Martin Tran..."
A mortal sin? Isn't that a tad extreme?
This absolute ignorant statement leaves me speechless.
How I'd love to square off with this insipid priest, and put this fraud in his place.
There is no theological basis for this drivel.
So far Restore the Sacred has published 19 flyers that have been handed out and e-mailed to parishioners. After flyer 15 was published on February 19, Father Tran sent 37 families a form letter on February 27 informing them that he "officially" invited them "to leave the parish St. Mary's by the Sea and the diocese of Orange. You will be welcomed back only with your sincere heart-felt repentance/conversion on these issues mentioned above." Father Tran also wrote that he had Bishop Brown's approval for this "invitation."
The issues that offended Father Tran included, "personal attacks and false allegations against Bishop Brown," "false allegations against the American Bishops," "personal attacks and false allegations against Father Martin Tran," "false accusations/condemnations against various ministries of the Diocese of Orange as heresy," and "creating misleading, confusion, division and chaos in the parish by intentional disobedience and opposition to the current liturgical norms of the Diocese (mandated by the Bishop), set by the USNCCB and Bishop Brown, approved by Rome."
http://www.losangelesmission.com/ed/articles/2006/0605rk.htm
Yes!
Hey ... it's a power trip.
Any bishop who determines that people MUST NOT kneel prior to recieving communion has a serious pastoral problem. Considering such reverence for the Lord as a mortal sin leaves no doubt as to the priest's pastoral problem.
I am quite certain that any priest who would publicly proclaim that kneeling is a mortal sin is the same sort of priest who would at the same time refuse to proclaim that abortion or deliberate defiance of the Church's teaching on birth control is a mortal sin.
We went through the same thing - but worse - when we were told in the early 1990's that kneeling for the consecration was also a bad thing.
Father Clem Davis of St. Bartholomew Parish was the culprit.
It is for this reason that I kneel to recieve communion no matter where I am - and always will. Thank God that the Vatican has made it clear that any priest who even suggests that doing so is disobedient is to be reported through proper channels so that such abusive treatment of devout parishioners can be stopped.
It was in Columbus, Indiana in the Archdiocese of Indianapolis.
Apparently Father Tran hasn't learned that yet.
Kneeling to recieve communion is ALWAYS appropriate, no matter what any one tells you to the contrary.
http://www.adoremus.org/Notitiae-kneeling.html
Back in 1997, we were going to church in Enterprise, AL (St. John's), and one Sunday before Mass the priest announced that "from now on, kneeling would be optional" Well, that first Sunday 3/4 stood, (not me), by the end of the month, barely 1/2 were standing and within 2 months, everybody was back on their knees!!
Kneeling a mortal sin??? That is one troubled priest (on a power trip) who needs to be prayed for
All Latin Rite Catholics who are physically able should be kneeling for the Consecration everywhere, although I think there are some liberal parishes where this is not done.
That said, there is absolutely no theological basis for Fr. Tran's statement, nor is there a pastoral reason to try to enforce such rigidity on this point. There is nothing wrong with Catholics, on their own, choosing to follow a well-established pious practice.
In my own parish, although the archbishop has established the norm in our diocese to be standing, our pastor has asked us to kneel. If someone wanted to stand, I don't believe he, or anyone else, would take issue with it.
It goes without saying that this really isn't about kneeling.
This is, of course, the parish where the bishop retracted the indult. It would seem, from appearances at least, that Fr. Tran has been tasked with "breaking" the traditionalists. What the motivations is for this, I cannot say.
I would ask FR Catholics to pray for Fr. Tran, the Bp. Brown and the parishioners.
Also, this is an absolute load.
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